This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Councilman Park's Prophetic 2006 Concerns on flawed LAPD Crime Stats

As the Los Angeles Police Commission meets behind close doors to review and decide whether LAPD Chief Charlie Beck merits a Second Term (most likely), we venture back to 2006 when a former Chief voiced concerns about the department's reliance on the infant and flawed COMPSTAT Program.

Derided as "Bitter Bernie" by his critics, CD 8 City Council Bernard Parks has been prophetic in voicing his concerns about LA's Budget and LAPD's COMPSTAT Program.

"Back in my day on the police force, when we would see something like that, we would call it cooking the books," Parks said. "You can say you reduced crime by the way you report them. But the people in my district - where crime is the highest - can tell you there's been no change." LAPD officials reported a 28 percent drop in violent crime in 2005, the same year the department reclassified domestic assaults in which the victim suffered minor injuries or had no injuries. Because those incidents are considered battery rather than aggravated assault, they are not included in the violent-crime statistics generated by the department and widely used by other government agencies. The LAPD reported a 40 percent drop in aggravated-assault cases in 2005, but there was no breakdown for domestic-violence crimes. City officials said Wednesday that domestic-abuse cases are reported as serious crimes only if there are visible injuries or police believe felony charges should be filed.

Nine days and a Daily News Editorial later, then Chief Bill Bratton was none to happy with Park's comments ...........Following Councilman Bernard Parks’ repeated assertions that LAPD has been “cooking the books,” the City Council’s own Legislative Analyst investigated and issued a report on the matter, “LAPD Crime Reporting Procedures.” In sum and substance the CLA reported that the LAPD is correctly reporting aggravated assaults according to the federal rules for the Uniform Crime Report.Moreover, the CLA confirmed from the FBI that if the LAPD reverted to reporting statistics as previously done under former Chief Parks, the FBI would disqualify the numbers and omit them from their annual report.The over-reporting was discovered during audits in 2004 when staff from my COMPSTAT unit found the LAPD had been incorrectly reporting Part I aggravated assault numbers by including Part II non-aggravated assaults, which were domestic-violence related, into the Part I totals, and they had been doing so for many years.Frankly, the issue raised by Councilman Parks is much ado about nothing, and he knows it. The LAPD is following the FBI’s rules for reporting crime numbers. It’s the FBI’s report and we have to give them what they want, in the format they want it. We have worked closely with them to ensure this accuracy.
But as the photo below from the LA Times Exclusive notes .............